Transportation available to free meal site

By Scott Rawdon

BUCKEYE LAKE – Offering free meals doesn’t do any good for people who have no transportation to them, said Buckeye Lake Village Council member Kaye Hartman Monday night.

She said the Food Pantry Network of Licking County is working with the Licking County Transit Board to provide transportation for those in need who would like to take advantage of the food pantry’s open soup kitchen.

“If you can’t get in, then the soup kitchen isn’t going to do you any good,” said Hartman, who is also volunteer coordinator for the Licking County Salvation Army. She said the soup kitchen offers two meals a day from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

“It’s an option to make sure people in Licking County don’t go hungry,” said Chuck Moore, Food Pantry Network of Licking County executive director Wednesday. “We’re hoping it’s an indefinite program.” He said people may pick up transportation vouchers at the LEADS building in Buckeye Lake Village or the Jacksontown United Methodist Church. Once people have the vouchers, Moore said they may call the transit board to schedule a ride to the Salvation Army’s open soup kitchen on East Main Street in Newark. According to the transit board’s web site, to schedule a ride call (740) 670-5185 press #1 or 1-800-350-7071 and tell the scheduler the day you want to travel, your full name and those of any other passengers traveling with you, your address and phone number, mobility issues (wheelchair, cane, service animal, personal care attendant, etc.), pick up and drop off addresses, the time you need to be at your destination, and the time you need picked up to return home.

In other council news:

• Council approved an ordinance to issue $120,000 in bonds for purchasing a Ford F-150, a mini-excavator, a vacuum excavator, and refunding the village’s truck bonds dated June 18, 2010. Hartman said the village needs the equipment and can pay for it, but she wasn’t happy with the request to pass the ordinance as an emergency (waiving the three reading rule) before council members had more time to review it.

“I didn’t realize it would be on the agenda,” said Hartman. She said someone in village administration should’ve told council it would be on the agenda and explain why it should be passed as an emergency. “There wasn’t anything wrong with (the ordinance),” said Hartman, but she’d like the village administration to follow protocol as a larger municipality would. Hartman said she believes the village is evolving and from her experience on the Newark City Council she’d like to see the village operated with more formality.

“ I have no problem with purchasing the equipment; we need it,” said Council President Charlene Hayden, but she said council members don’t like to be “blindsided” with ordinances.